The pilot killed in the crash of an F/A-18C Hornet in northern Nevada was identified Saturday as Marine Capt. Reid Nannen. Nannen, 32, of Hopedale, Ill., was killed March 1 when the plane crashed 70 miles east of the Naval Air Station at Fallon, Nev. He was a student at the TopGun school there. Nannen's permanent assignment was at the Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni, Japan, and he had twice deployed to Afghanistan during his 10-year career. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

PRETORIA, South Africa -- Samantha Taylor, blond with dark eyeliner, cut a slight, nervous figure on the witness stand Friday in Oscar Pistorius' murder trial. Taylor, who began dating the South African Olympic athlete in 2011 at age 17, broke down weeping several times when asked in court about breaking up with him in 2012. Pistorius stared coldly at his former girlfriend, whom he dropped for model and lawyer Reeva Steenkamp, as she took the witness stand in Pretoria's High Court, smiling uncertainly.

Re "Of guns and militias," Postscript, March 1 As Adam Winkler made abundantly clear in his debate with Mark Kalmansohn over the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, this is not - and rightly should not be - about what the words mean today. It's about historical context. But all these interminable and clearly irreconcilable differences about the relevance of the predicate clause are, themselves, irrelevant. The real question is not what the 18th century framers meant by "militia" but what they meant by "arms.

A robbery suspect in Albuquerque appears to toss his gun into the air while fleeing a police officer who shot at him eight times from behind, newly released video shows. Four of the shots are heard after the gun is in the air. The video, which includes audio, was captured in October by the officer's lapel-mounted camera. The case of robbery suspect Joaquin Ortega, 35, is one of the most recent controversies surrounding the Albuquerque Police Department's use of force. The city has paid out millions of dollars in lawsuits related to alleged police misconduct in recent years.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly is standing by his comparison of President Obama's gun control policies to those of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Kim Jong Il and other dictators, saying that government encroachment on citizens' rights amounted to tyranny. “Tyranny is the daily purpose of dictators, and I will not apologize for pointing out that our current president acts more like a dictator than a leader of a free people in a Constitutional Republic,” Donnelly said Tuesday in an emailed statement.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Under intensifying pressure from gun control groups and New York Atty. Gen. Eric Schneiderman, Facebook is tightening its policies to make it more difficult for people to illegally sell or trade guns on Facebook and Instagram, particularly to minors. The giant social network will block minors from seeing posts about gun sales and trades, the company said Wednesday. Facebook said it would limit access to posts about gun sales and trades to people 18 and older.

SACRAMENTO -- Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a Republican candidate for governor, on Tuesday likened President Obama to dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin on the issue of gun control. The comparison, issued in a tweet , included an image with two rows of portraits. The first one showed George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others who Donnelly said "stood for gun rights. " The second had Obama alongside Hitler, Stalin and King George III as people who "stood for gun control.

The pilot of a military plane that crashed in a mountainous region of northern Nevada was killed in the accident, the Navy said Sunday. The plane, an F/A-18C Hornet on loan from the Marine Corps to the Navy for "Top Gun" pilot training, crashed Saturday afternoon east of the Naval Air Station in Fallon, Nev. The plane was a total loss, the Navy said. Rescue teams from the Navy and the Lander County, Nev., Sheriff's Office took hours to reach the site in a remote, rugged area Saturday.

Re "The paradox of open carry laws," Opinion, Feb. 23 Only in the United States could there be a serious article on the advantages and disadvantages of carrying a gun openly or concealed; only in the United States could a George Zimmerman or Michael Dunn incident happen; only in the United States, among all developed countries, is there a mainstream culture of fear that accepts carrying a gun as necessary for protection. Some Americans still believe that Elvis is alive, that the Earth revolves around the sun, that the world is flat and that witches exist.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook is in talks with two gun control groups that are pressuring the giant social network to crack down on illegal gun sales and trades. "We are talking with a number of organizations around our policies on guns," a Facebook spokesman said. Facebook also noted that it's common for the company to engage with advocacy groups concerned about hate speech, bullying and other hot-button issues. Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have stepped up their demands after recent gun arrests were tied to sales of guns facilitated through Facebook.